Dialog for theater, for films and television, for radio and finally for novels share a lot of things in common, but ultimately they are different species of animals. In theater, dialog is always the most effective method of conveying information; but the motion picture has brought the entire world into the theater, or rather, brought the theater out to the real world, and so dialog is used differently. The basic rule of thumb in films and TV is that it’s better to show an action, rather than talk about it. Film and television use their own visual grammar to tell a story, with their use of close ups, long shots, panning and dollying, etc. But novels are just words, words, words! (That’s a reference to Hamlet, by the way.)

Yes, there are great films with plenty of dialog that are wonderful – and I, for one, am partial to well-written dialog in a film. Some of us love the rise and fall of good conversation, and become orgasmic about how the rhythms and stresses of speech become actual poetry in the actors’ mouths. In fact I find good dialog every bit as exciting as any car chase or yellow explosion. My friend and one-time mentor, the late great Joseph L. Mankiewicz, used dialog primarily to propel his films. (There’s an old joke that Joe’s idea of an action sequence was to have one of his actor’s throw their hat on a bed.) Yet he still managed to win four back-to-back Oscars during his lifetime utilizing dialog as his chief weapon, and if it’s good enough for him…

Dialog has three purposes in all the media I’ve mentioned –

To reveal (or suggest) the nature of each character

Provide the audience with essential information

To advance the plot

And in a novel, there is a fourth task:

4. Get into a character’s head and actually learn what he is thinking.

These are all pretty big responsibilities – right? But think about the reason why it’s more effective (with novels perhaps being an exception) to use actions to demonstrate the essential truth of a scene or character?

ANSWER: Because people lie.

More to the point – people can lie to themselves. They obfuscate, reinterpret, put the best spin on things, flatter, manipulate, and say things all the time that are not strictly true. But actions seldom lie, at least in fiction.

Most beginning writers believe that the best dialog is the kind that most approaches reality. But this isn’t so. Remember that dialog in all the media I’ve mentioned should only give the appearance of reality, but should not attempt to create it. (Leave that to the medium of soap opera, an art form as tedious as life itself). Effective speech in all these media utilizes economy, simplicity and invisibility. Novels can once again be the exception to this rule, because ostensibly you have pages and pages to tell a story and are not limited to a film producer’s clock watch, where productions are broken down to ½ hour and 1-hour time slots (as in TV or Radio), or 2-hour running times (motion pictures.) That being said, the publishing industry today looks askance at anything over 300 pages and mentally calculates that x-amount of pages over this figure will result in a higher publishing cost. Let me assure you – they like economy too. Simon and Schuster was adamant that my mystery novels not exceed 85,000 words and edited them to fit within that page number. That’s why it’s best to follow the rule about economy and simplicity in novels too, because more and more they have “running times” imposed on them as well. (However, when you’re a J.K. Rowling or a James Cameron, you’ve earned the right to do anything you want; these artists are rarely known for their economy or simplicity these days, are they?)

In addition to economy and simplicity, good dialog should also be invisible. By this I mean that the writer should never call attention to how clever s/he is. The reader/viewer must ideally be lost in your work, and when you become overly clever or self-reverential you risk losing them entirely. Let me give you an example – the Oscar winning screenplay by James Goldman for “The Lion In Winter” was a first-rate effort with one glaring defect: Goldman was forever complimenting himself on what a clever line he had just written. “Oh, you’re good – that’s first rate!” the characters would crow at some particularly witticism said by another. If I’ve learned anything – if I have an altar to which I kneel – it is the altar of invisibility. Nothing should come between the reader/viewer and/or the page/image – not even the author. Hemingway used to ruthlessly cut out his favorite parts of his manuscript, because if he loved them he knew they were only getting in the way of the story. Follow his lead.

A note on trendy words – they may make our screenplays sound current, yes; but – conversely – nothing will make our screenplays (or novels) sound so dated as yesterday’s trends. Today’s awesome soon becomes yesterday’s groovy. Use these words judiciously if you have any ambition to write a timeless work. There’s nothing wrong with using wonderful or great to convey the same meaning.

Brad Geagley

Brad Geagley is the best-selling author of two critically acclaimed novels, "Day of the False King" and "Year of the Hyenas" published with Simon & Schuster, translated into 23 languages. He recently self-published the smash-hit, "The Stand In" and "Chronicles of the Sanguivorous"--both are available for download on Amazon, iTunes and Nook.